STRAATMAN

Straatman is Angel Vergara Santiago’s alter ego. Straatman sits in a tent – an art camp tent – or underneath a white canvas on the street, drawing and painting, talking to spectators or recording their comments and surrounding sounds. However, at the same time he seems to be totally introverted. The way he is poses reflects a modern paradox: it embodies a world of art that seems to get stuck in its self-proclaimed autonomy and in a desire to grant art a proper place when it is found on the street. The white canvas refers to a painter’s canvas and the sheet used by photographers as a cover when they were about to take a picture in the early days of photography. Here, the artist’s own world becomes a domain in which he locks himself up, attempting to capture reality in this way.